Dion, or On Living according to His Own Principles

Contents

Reading pages: 239–271 · 272–304 · 305–310

1. 239Synesius begins from Philostratus, who in the Lives of the Sophists classed Dio among philosophers with a sophist's eloquence.
2. 240Dio was a sophist in style but not in life; he changed in the opposite direction from Aristocles, a Peripatetic who became a pleasure-loving sophist.
3. 241Dio, unlike Aristocles, turned from sophist to philosopher; Philostratus should have described his double career instead of grouping him with Carneades.
4. 242Carneades and the like would have refused the name of sophist; Dio really lived two lives and argued against himself.
5. 243Philostratus contradicts himself, calling Dio a philosopher mistaken for a sophist and yet excusing his trivial speeches as a sophist's.
6. 244Before his conversion Dio sincerely attacked philosophers, including Musonius; after it his strong nature showed itself in philosophy.
7. 245After his conversion Dio treated even rhetorical themes as a statesman; he neglected technical philosophy but excelled in moral exhortation.
8. 246Dio's speeches should be sorted into those before and after his exile, so that his attacks on and praises of the philosophers are not confused.
9. 247Philostratus wrongly treats Dio's Euboean Speech, a serious portrait of the happy life, as being of a piece with his trivial praise of a parrot.
10. 248The Euboean Speech humbles the rich and comforts the poor; it rightly follows Dio's fourth speech on kingship, which promised a portrait of the good life.
11. 249Apart from the heroic lives of Diogenes and Socrates, the Euboean hunter's simple, just life is the happy life open to all; Dio also praised the Essenes.
12. 250Dio's style differs between his sophistic showpieces, which preen like a peacock, and the plain, purposeful works of his later life.
13. 251Dio's mature style is ancient, weighty and natural, as in his civic speeches, unlike his showpieces and his early speech against the philosophers.
14. 252Dio's speech against the philosophers was as brilliant as Aristophanes' Clouds, whose fluency Synesius illustrates with a quotation.
15. 253Even at his most showy, Dio stayed close to the ancient rhetoric; in most of his works he belongs with the sober classical orators.
16. 254Dio's style is restrained and his arguments dense and inventive; his hand is recognizable in both his rhetorical and his political works.
17. 255Synesius writes this assessment of Dio for the son whose birth had just been foretold, intending Dio's political works as a bridge to philosophy.
18. 256After weighty philosophy one should relax by stages through lighter literature and then climb back to seriousness.
19. 257The philosopher should be cultured and widely read, a true Greek; curiosity is the prelude to philosophy, which judges all the arts.
20. 258The Muses form one chorus and cannot be separated; specialists master only one, but philosophy presides over all.
21. 259Like Apollo leading the Muses and singing alone, the philosopher unites all learning, communing with God and also speaking to men.
22. 260Those who scorn rhetoric are simply incapable of it; a beautiful soul expresses itself outwardly, and eloquence even helps to guard sacred truths.
23. 261An unlettered sage must either be silent or blurt out secrets; Proteus, by contrast, showed visitors a dazzling show.
24. 262Like Proteus's shows or Ixion's cloud, eloquent discourse satisfies the many and guards the inner truth, which God opens to the worthy.
25. 263Proteus's transformations hid lessons in natural philosophy; the philosopher, being human, needs literature both to reach people and to rest from contemplation.
26. 264Literature gives the mind a pure resting-place close to contemplation; without it, nature seeks lower pleasures.
27. 265Those who claim to need no rest from contemplation pretend to be gods; Synesius turns to barbarian ascetics who renounce society for contemplation.
28. 266The ascetics live apart with sacred songs and rites, abstaining like Homer's gods from bread and wine, yet nature draws even them back from contemplation.
29. 267Few even of the ascetics reach contemplation, and none stays there; they know they are men with lower lives to keep in check.
30. 268The ascetics weave baskets to occupy their lower nature when they cannot contemplate, guarding against idleness.
31. 269Since no human can always contemplate, Synesius chooses literature as the purest middle pleasure between divine austerity and bodily indulgence.
32. 270The Greek descends from contemplation only as far as science and literature, which are akin to mind and train the soul's eye for higher vision.
33. 271Literary work engages the mind; the ascetics' way, though some reach the goal, is a leap without stages or reason.
34. 272Like initiates who undergo rather than learn, the ascetics leap up and fall down, skipping reason; the Greek philosopher climbs by a ladder.
35. 273The gradual way lets many advance; the leap succeeds only for rare, self-moved minds like the Egyptian king Amous.
36. 274Greek education helps ordinary souls rise, while the ascetic leap suits only souls rarer than the phoenix; most who attempt it toil in vain.
37. 275Most who join the ascetic life lack mind, the only temple God inhabits; true philosophy seeks the purifying virtues by reason, not mere habit.
38. 276Ascetic self-control practised without wisdom is not true temperance, for the virtues imply one another and serve the mind's ascent.
39. 277The ascetics make continence an end in itself; for the philosopher the virtues are only purifications preparing the soul, which is not itself the good.
40. 278Virtue only restores the soul to its middle state; to reach the good it must also ascend through mind toward God.
41. 279The virtues are like the alphabet for reading, a first step; ascetics who rest content with purity are blameless, but some go further foolishly.
42. 280Some uneducated ascetics, scorning learning, spin absurd and malicious doctrines; Synesius addresses them directly.
43. 281Synesius tells the unlearned ascetics that, lacking the genius of an Antony, they should either keep to the traditional teachings or be educated.
44. 282Holding right opinion without reasons is a respectable middle state; those who seek the reasons need training, or they will fall into folly.
45. 283Even Socrates nearly went astray; theologians cannot spring up overnight; truth demands a long course of education.
46. 284Initiation into wisdom comes by stages; late learning is no shame, but the unlearned ascetics add to ignorance the pretence of knowledge.
47. 285Teaching before learning, the unlearned produce monstrous doctrines that tear the divine apart; like Icarus they lose both earth and sky.
48. 286Synesius's rebuke applies equally to boastful Greeks; he honours the poets, orators and historians who nurture the young toward the Muses.
49. 287The Muses refresh the weary philosopher and send him back to the contest; even one who loves only their outward beauty does no harm.
50. 288The cultured man is a swan, the philosopher an eagle; God lets a man be both, joining eloquence and philosophy.
51. 289Synesius calls his essay a game written in freedom for his son, not a timed speech for a court.
52. 290Synesius, free of courts and audiences, pities the sophist who must please a crowd and becomes a public slave.
53. 291The sophist lives in fear of his audience's every look, after nights of toil and anxious preparation for a single performance.
54. 292The sophist's care for his voice wins him only mockery; Synesius sings for himself, to the trees and the stream.
55. 293Free of clocks, pupils and fixed lectures, Synesius speaks as long as he likes; teaching would have cost him his freedom and his judgment.
56. 294Teachers who must lecture daily produce only barren or premature work and lose the ability to think a problem through.
57. 295A teacher answers to pupils and parents alike, a worse theatre than the sophist's; Synesius prefers free company and listening to better men.
58. 296A teacher must be envious of rivals and so cannot improve; Socrates, by contrast, learned from sophists and sent the rich young to them.
59. 297Socrates let the young treat him as an equal, bore Clitophon's criticism, and humoured Phaedrus with a speech.
60. 298Socrates was cheerful though despised, even by Xanthippe; free of opinion's tyranny, he could move from a playful speech to a hymn of the divine.
61. 299Socrates rose from play to the highest vision before Phaedrus; Synesius likewise plays and is serious for his promised son.
62. 300Synesius wants his son to be both eloquent and wise, like Socrates, who learned the art of the funeral speech from Aspasia.
63. 301Socrates wrote poetry in prison at the god's command; Apollo himself is a poet, so those who despise poetry rank below Apollo.
64. 302Synesius prays that his son be grounded in literature before meeting its enemies; he leaves him few lands and slaves but many books.
65. 303Synesius cites the Pythagorean rule against altering books as his reason for leaving Dio's text uncorrected.
66. 304The Pythagorean argument begins: best is a mind born already active and gifted, and some such have lived.
67. 305Most minds are only potential and are roused by books; the reader should rely less on the letter as he grows and supply gaps himself.
68. 306Supplying what is missing in faulty books trains the mind, as eagles teach their young to fly by letting them go and catching them.
69. 307Synesius often anticipates what an author will say next and finds he has matched the thought and even the words.
70. 308Reading aloud, Synesius once filled gaps so well that the audience applauded the author for his additions.
71. 309Steeped in reading, Synesius can continue tragedies and comedies in each author's own manner.
72. 310In all his imitations Synesius's own voice sounds through, like a drone string beneath a melody.